


The Dark and Winding Road

by darkly_ironic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 50states_spn Challenge, Case Fic, Gen, Ghosts, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 02, Small Towns, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkly_ironic/pseuds/darkly_ironic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's been a series of mysterious disappearances in the tiny Oregon town of Cannon Beach, and all the evidence points to the local legend of the Bandage Man... Set in late season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark and Winding Road

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to hillz_85 for the beta!

**  
_Thursday, April 12, 2007_   
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They pulled into Cannon Beach, Oregon on a Thursday, two days after the fourth disappearance. They’d been working a job in Portland when Sam had found the story, a half-column long piece in a local paper. After the brothers had salted and burned the Black Dog they’d been hunting in Washington Park, Dean had decided they were due a hunt by the ocean.

So, Cannon Beach it was. It was almost dark when they’d finally reached town, but Dean felt like he’d still been able to get a good picture of the town. It was the type of small town Dean could have found on the coast anywhere between Canada and Mexico—only one main road, over-expensive seafood restaurants, kitschy gift shops, and a tourist-to-local ratio of at least 5:1.

Sam liked it though. He was watching out the window with the most interest he’d shown since Dean had told him that no, they weren’t stopping the hunt just so Sam could go spend all his money in some lame-ass bookstore. It had been an uncomfortable drive after that.

Sam couldn’t sulk forever though. Sooner or later he’d get over it, and he’d go back to being his normal, annoying self. In the meantime, Dean didn’t mind the silence. Really, he didn’t.

“Sammy, you hungry?”

Sam didn’t look at him. “Yeah, I guess.”

Dean sighed. Sam could probably been a little less enthusiastic about that, but not by much.

“Hey, look, a Pig’n Pancake!”

Sam’s eye roll was so exaggerated Dean could practically hear it.

They ended up finding a motel before food, since Sam had shot down Dean’s vote for the Pig’n Pancake. The motel was way more expensive than their normal type, and that was with middle of the week prices. It was also correspondingly nicer though, and Dean was looking forward to sleeping in a room that didn’t have cigarette burns in the sheets and disturbing growths in the shower that he was sure probably needed to be salted and burned. Still, he knew there was a reason why they avoided tourist trap towns.

Sam was still pissy when they carried their bags into the room, and when Dean suggested food again, he stalked off to find his own dinner. Dean had seen a sign for some kind of organic café on their hunt for a motel, and he figured Sam would disappear there for a while.

Two hours later, after tracking down a satisfactory dinner that was completely and deliciously lacking any tofu or greens, Dean was sprawled out on the bed closest to the door, Sam’s laptop resting on his stomach. Sam himself wasn’t back yet, and Dean was one more fruitless Google search away from being the one-man search party to go find him.

He typed in another set of keywords and stared at the completely useless top twenty-five results. Dean sighed and started scrolling. _OK Sam, you’ve got ten minutes…_

* * *

It took Dean half-an-hour to find Sam. His brother was in a little second-hand bookstore on the other side of the cluster of shops and restaurants where the organic café was, and when Dean found Sam, his first instinct was to take it as a sign of defiance for Portland. Then Dean saw that Sam was wearing his FBI face as he talked to the guy behind the counter, and he swallowed back his automatic snide comment.

Sam smiled tightly when he saw Dean in the doorway. Tilting his head towards Dean, he told the man, “This is my partner, Agent Townsend. Do you think you could tell him what you just told me?”

“Sure.” The bookshop owner was a middle-aged man with graying hair and the early signs of an impressive beer belly. He leaned in closer to Dean as he spoke, elbows propped up on the counter. “See, the police have been looking for some run of the mill reason for all this shit that’s been going on, but it’s not that simple. You’re going to be cool about looking into—alternate—explanations, aren’t you?” He looked suspiciously at Dean.

Sam caught Dean’s eye, and raised his eyebrows microscopically.

 _Oh, right._ “Definitely. My partner and I are very thorough.” The guy still looked skeptical, so Dean added, “We’re a regular Mulder and Scully.”

Sam had his _what?_ face now, but Dean ignored him. The bookstore guy looked placated though.

“I told all this to the police, but they wouldn’t listen.”

Dean nodded in encouragement.

“Have you talked to the police yet?”

“We just got to town,” Sam said smoothly.

“Right. Okay, so something’s been taking those poor people, but it’s not a person, it’s the Bandage Man.” He looked at them like he expected some kind of horrified reaction.

“The Bandage Man?” Dean directed that at Sam, because, _really?_ Sam gave him an apologetic half-shrug.

“The Bandage Man,” the owner agreed. “The spirit of a mutilated mill worker who died on the way to the hospital. Now he haunts the road where he died.”

“Apparently, he gets his name from the rotting bandages he’s wrapped in,” Sam added.

“Like a mummy?”

“Nah, the weather’s too wet.”

Dean thought maybe Sam was forgiving him for Portland, just a little.

“Look, I’m really glad to help you guys, but I need to close up.” He glanced out the storefront window at the darkening sky. “I’m not driving around after dark.”

“You live out of town?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, Seaside, which means I have to go right through the Bandage Man’s territory.”

“Right.” Sam picked up his notebook from the counter.

“We’ll come back later,” Dean promised.

He and Sam left through the back door. “So, Bandage Man?” he asked once they were back on the main street.

Sam shrugged. “I dunno. It sounds familiar. I’ll do some research.”

“Come on Sam, how often do people tell us exactly what we’re hunting? It’s too easy.”

“Talk to the police in the morning?”

“Yeah.” Dean felt tired, the kind of bone-deep ache that owned nothing to the all-nighter they’d pulled the day before and the long drive that followed, and everything to the job itself. Sam didn’t seem to have noticed though, and that was a small relief. The last thing Dean wanted was a heartfelt inquisition.

He collapsed onto his bed when they got back to the motel, carefully flopping down just close enough to Sam’s laptop that it made his brother hiss a curse and lunge to rescue his computer. Small pleasures.

Sam flipped the laptop open. Dean closed his eyes and listened to the soft clicks of Sam learning new things. After a few minutes, there was an over-exaggerated exhale from the other bed.

“Find anything?” Dean asked, not opening his eyes.

Sam sighed again. “Yeah, loads.” Dean cracked an eye open. Sam was frowning at the computer screen. “I guess this Bandage Man’s a pretty well known urban legend around here. There’s ghost stories, ‘first hand accounts,’ the works.”

Dean could understand Sam’s frustration. The only thing worse than hunting something there was no lore on was when there was too much, and they were forced to try and separate reality from fiction after decades of retellings and elaborations.

“Most of it goes along with what Sean said—”

“Sean?”

“The guy in the bookstore.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, the mill accident victim is the most common variation, but there’s another story, that he was a murderer who was shot trying to escape and died somewhere in the woods.”

Dean frowned. “Then how did he turn into the mummy?”

“I don’t know, man.” Sam shut the laptop, setting it on the bedside table. “I’m going to bed.” He switched off his light, leaving the room in darkness. For a few minutes there were the sounds of rustling fabric as Sam settled, then quiet as Sam’s breathing went deep and slow.

“’Night, Sammy,” Dean said into the darkness. Sam grumbled something into his pillow, and Dean smiled, then rolled over, waiting for a sleep he wasn’t sure would come.

* * *

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_Friday, April 13, 2007_   
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Police Chief Glass was a striking blonde woman in her early forties. She’d seemed unenthusiastic when they’d introduced themselves, and the minute Sam had mentioned the Bandage Man, she’d gone from apathetic to suspicious.

“Have you been talking to Sean Gilly?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“He said he’d told you about his…theory?” Sam said.

The wariness didn’t go away. “Something like that. Look, I’m not even sure why the Feds are here. There haven’t been any signs of foul play, there’s no bodies, all we have is a couple of missed appointments and one abandoned truck, with isn’t exactly a rarity along the highway. Even if there is something going on here, I can think of a dozen possible causes before _ghost story_.”

Dean exchanged a look with Sam, the “where do we go from here?” one perfected by years of dealing with unwilling authority figures who didn’t want to share with the class.

“We’re keeping an open mind,” Dean said, echoing his words to Sean.

Chief Glass was still frowning slightly, clearly not buying it, but she didn’t protest.

Dean gave her his best winning smile. “Do you think you could tell us where you found the truck?”

It had been the most recent disappearance that left the truck behind, and it was still there when the Impala pulled into the turnout behind it, a little orange ticket stuck to its window.

Sam got the EMF meter out of the trunk, and Dean checked the truck. The back window between the bed and the cab was broken, but it was impossible to tell when it had happened. The driver’s door was locked, but Dean had wheedled the keys from Chief Glass. He eased the door open and leaned in, carefully avoiding the broken glass scattered across the seat. There was something else too, scraps of something thin and dirty-white that he mistook for torn paper at first glance. Then, as he leaned in closer he realized it was actually cloth.

There was a shrill beeping from behind him, and Dean straightened. Sam was two feet behind him, frowning at the EMF.

“Hey, look what I found.” Dean moved out of the way so Sam could turn his frown on the bits of cloth in the cab. “Look like bloodstained bandage to you?”

Sam didn’t answer. He was sniffing the air inside the truck, his nose wrinkling. “Do you smell something weird?”

Dean shrugged. “It’s been raining.”

“No, it’s more like something died in here.”

Dean groaned, shifting so he could lean back on the hood. “It’s looking like crazy Sean might be right, huh.”

Sam carefully extricated himself from the truck and joined Dean. “Yeah.” He didn’t look happy.

“Well, at least we know it’s something we can salt ‘n burn.”

Sam just snorted.

* * *

They searched the area around the truck for close to an hour, finding more scraps of bandage caught in the trees around the pullout, and a place where the gravel was scuffed like there’d been a struggle. Dean was the one that found the trail leading into the woods, a slash of broken branches and trampled foliage that went about twenty feet away from the road, then stopped. Dean had the uncomfortable feeling it’d been left by the latest victim. Sam had followed Dean to the trail’s dead end, and the warbling of the EMF did nothing to disprove Dean’s hunch.

After that, they tried to press deeper into the woods, but it was thick with brambles and low branches, and there was no sign of the supposed Bandage Man or his victim. Then it was time for lunch, and Dean wanted to indulge his sudden craving for clam chowder. Sam had seemed unwilling to leave what was now very probably a crime scene so quickly, but Dean promised they could go back to the bookstore and talk to Sean again after lunch, and Sam had grudgingly agreed that there was nothing else to find there. Also, Dean thought Sam was probably hungrier than he was willing to admit.

By the time they made it back to the bookstore, it was going on one o’clock. There were actual customers in the store this time, a couple loitering by the travel books, and two families with kids parked in the children’s section by the back door. Sam and Dean eased past them, headed for the front.

Sean wasn’t there. Instead, there was a girl behind the counter. She was pretty, about Dean’s age, with long brown hair and pale blue eyes. Dean tried giving her a charming smile, a far more suggestive one than he’d given Chief Glass, but she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled at Sam though, a brief flash of teeth and bubblegum pink lip-gloss that was quickly hidden as she dipped her head, hair swinging around to hide her face. Typical. She could probably tell Sam was a book lover. They were probably kindred souls or something.

He let Sam do the introductions. She seemed impressed by the badges, and she quietly introduced herself as Lucy MacMillian when Sam prompted her. She said it was Sean’s day off, and Dean was ready to leave right about then. Watching girls shyly flirt with Sam was not something he wanted to prolong.

Sam wasn’t finished though. “Has Sean mentioned the disappearances to you? What he thought might be behind it?”

Lucy brightened. “Oh, you mean the Bandage Man? Yeah, I know all about that.”

“You do?”

“You’re not seriously listening to him about that are you?” Her brow was furrowed now. “I mean, Sean’s a great guy, but sometimes I worry about him.” The last words were said in a stage whisper. “It’s like he’s not all there all the time, you know?”

Sam’s lips were pressed together in the look of honest concern Dean had never been able to perfect. “We’ll be sure to bear that in mind.” Dean gave her a friendly nod, and they headed towards the door.

They’d almost reached it when Lucy called them back.

“If you really believe Sean,” she said quietly, “there’s an old part of Highway 101 where the Bandage Man was first seen, back in the 60’s. It’s just dead-end asphalt now, but if he’s anywhere, it’ll be there.”

“Thanks,” Dean said. “You seem to know a lot about this,” he added.

She gave a half embarrassed laugh. “Sean hasn’t stopped talking about it for weeks.”

Sam smiled at her, and Dean could practically see her melt. “We’ll be in touch.”

The cloud cover of the morning had finally burned off, and the sun was something close to warm. It was hard for Dean to stay tense here, but he was fighting the desire to relax and kick his heels up. Cannon Beach might be quaint and picturesque, but one of the earliest lessons Dad had drilled into him was to never trust the way something looked, especially if it looked completely harmless.

“Do you want to go back to the police station and talk to Chief Glass about what we found?” Sam had stopped by one of the trails down to the beach and was watching the waves. Dean followed his gaze. Sometime, Dean would like to have a trip to the beach where they could actually _go to the beach_ , instead of having to rush around and do their “saving people, hunting things” routine. Though, if he could choose which beach to go to, it probably wouldn’t be one this far north. Even though the sun was out, the wind was bitingly cold, and the only people wearing swimsuits were small children with high metabolisms and stubbornly rigid ideas of what a proper trip to the beach involved.

Dean tore his eyes away from the water and tried to focus on something other than imaginary beach babes. “Or we could find the old highway. See if Lucy really knows as much as she says she does.”

The edges of Sam’s mouth turned down as he thought about it. “Do you really think we’d find anything during the day though? All the sightings of this thing have been after dark.” He shrugged. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt to look around now though, get our bearings.”

A short stop-off at the visitor’s center for directions later, they were headed out of town again. They found the stretch of old highway without too much difficulty—all they had to do was follow the trail of discarded beer cans. It was obvious what the most common use for the old road was now: half make-out-point and half dump. Dean found an impressive collection of potential biohazards, two old TVs, and a stack of decomposing Reader’s Guides, but no sign of a murderous mummy ghost. Sam’s exasperated shrug from the other end of the pavement was enough to say that he’d found the same amount of nothing as Dean.

By the time they’d finished combing the stretch of road and the woods around it, it was getting late, and Dean did think Sam had had a point about talking to Chief Glass again. They were halfway to the police station when Dean realized the thing he felt had been staring him in the face all day.

“Hey, dude, it’s Friday the 13th!”

Sam’s head was down, his ridiculous bangs hanging in front of his eyes as he studied the printouts he’d brought along, but out of the corner of his eye, Dean could tell Sam was smiling.

* * *

Police Chief Glass didn’t look very happy to see them. Dean hadn’t really expected her to welcome a couple of Feds with open arms, but her opinion of them seemed even lower than the standard amount of historical rivalry could account for. Dean thought it was probably because they kept bringing up urban legends as plausible theories.

“Was the window broken when you found the car?” Dean asked, trying for the effect Sam had on witnesses, the effect Sam couldn’t pull off himself because he’d headed for the men’s room almost as soon as they’d got to the station. He’d been gone a while, and Dean could only hope it hadn’t been the chowder. He’d liked the chowder. Clearly though, Dean’s attempt at Sam-channeling wasn’t working, because Glass was still glaring at him with a frozen expression that might have almost passed for polite if it wasn’t for the anger in her eyes.

“Yes, the widow was broken. The truck could have been out there all night though. There’s a dozen things that could have broken that window. Personally, I wouldn’t start looking for ghosts until I’d gone through at least another twenty.”

“Really?” Dean jumped at Sam’s voice, turning towards him as his brother slid back into his chair.

Glass blinked. “What?”

“If you’re so convinced there’s a normal explanation for these disappearances, why have you been running searches for cases from the 50’s and 60’s that match the Bandage Man legend?”

Well, that came out of nowhere. Sam looked pleased with himself though, and Dean suddenly realized exactly why Sam’s bathroom break had taken so long and that the route to said bathroom had taken him right by at least three computers. There was hope for Sammy yet.

Glass went pale, then flushed. “Do you know what it would do to the economy around here if this got out?” she hissed. “The only thing this town has is tourism. What do you think would happen if it became news that we’ve got a vengeful spirit attacking motorists? The last thing we need is people like you two and Sean Gilly making trouble.” Her voice was quiet, but the inflection was more than clear.

“I dunno,” Dean said, also keeping his voice low, “a real, documentable spirit, you’d get all sorts of new traffic.”

“Not the kind we want. We’re built out of families and well-off retirees from the Valley, not kooks with night-vision goggles and creepy vans.”

“All right then, why don’t you tell us what’s really going on, and we’ll stop it before the creepy vans show up.” Sam was leaning forward slightly, every overgrown inch of him radiating honest earnestness. This time, it worked.

It was properly dark by the time they got back to the motel. Once Glass had started talking it didn’t take her long to tell them her side of the story, but it had still been several hours and a pizza before they’d made it out of the police station. Most of that time had been trying to keep up the FBI cover. Dean had the sneaking suspicion Glass would stop trusting them fast if she found out the _whole_ truth.

As far as Glass was concerned, Dean thought it was probably a relief for her to actually be able to tell someone about what was happening, even if it turned out she didn’t know much more than Sam and Dean did, which wasn’t much. All she’d been able to tell them was it’d started about three months earlier. At first, it was just dogs that were let out during the night never to be seen again, then, in the past two months, tourists vanishing without a trace. No evidence, no bodies, no leads, just a whole lot of crying relatives and dead ends.

The motel parking lot still wasn’t full, but it was close. The approaching weekend seemed to be doubling the town’s population, and Dean was just glad they’d got a room when they did. The prospect of heading back out into the woods wasn’t an appealing one, but it wasn’t looking like they had any options on this one other than old-fashioned legwork. Dean was lost in thought, pondering the relative dangers of where he could safely leave the Impala, when Sam threw out an arm, startling him to a stop twenty feet from the door.

The front door of the motel room was half-open, hanging loosely on broken hinges. The wood around the lock was splintered too, like the door had been torn open by something inhumanly strong.

Dean pulled his pistol out of his waistband, motioning Sam to stay behind him with his other hand. He closed the gap between him and the door quickly, feeling acutely conscious of how loud Sam’s breath was in his ear.

Through the door, the room was pitch dark and quiet. Not that that meant much. He paused to the side of the door for a moment, trying to detect movement, but there was nothing. He kicked the door the rest of the way in, his gun raised. Behind him, there was a rustle of fabric and a _click_ as Sam found the light switch. The room was suddenly far too bright, and Dean bit back a curse.

Then, his vision cleared and he got a good look at the room. “Son of a bitch!”

It had been torn apart, clothes and books scattered across the room, the drawers of the cheap pressboard dresser pulled out and broken on the floor. The sheets had been ripped off the beds, the mattresses slashed and off their bed frames at haphazard angles.

“Wow,” Sam said softly. “Think they were looking for something?”

Papers rustled as Sam moved forward. He had his gun out now, but Dean didn’t think there was anyone—or anything—still here. He checked the bathroom just to be sure, but the room was empty. He turned back to Sam to find his brother kneeling on the floor, sifting through the papers scattered around him.

“Dean, I can’t find Dad’s journal.” Sam’s voice was level, calm, but Dean knew him well enough to tell it was just a cover for growing panic.

Dean shoved his gun back in his waistband and helped him look. They’d left the journal in Sam’s bag, which was now disemboweled, its contents strewn around it on the floor. They didn’t have many possessions and the room wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take them long to take inventory. Only two things were missing: the journal and Sam’s laptop. Whoever had searched the room had bypassed their weapons and books and gone straight for their most valuable tool and the one thing they had that was irreplaceable.

“Hey.” Dean crawled out from under Sam’s bed for the third time and sat back on his heels. Sam was holding something up, a scrap of something thin, off-white and mottled with rusty brown stains. “Look what I found.”

Dean sniffed the air experimentally. There was a scent of something in the air he’d missed before, an echo of something long dead and putrescent. He’s smelled something similar a hundred times before when he’d been standing over an open grave, but he’d become so desensitized to the scent over the years he’d barely noticed it here. Dean guessed from Sam’s expression of distaste that he’d figured it out too.

“Oh my God!”

Sam and Dean both jumped and turned towards the door. The motel manager was standing in the ruined doorway, hands over her mouth.

Dean got to his feet. “Have you heard or seen anything weird tonight?”

The woman shook her head. “Not until now. Oh God, I’m going to call the police!” She half-ran back to the office, leaving Sam and Dean standing in the wreckage of their room.

Glass got there ten minutes later. She didn’t look happy, an expression Dean was feeling very familiar with, and he gathered she’d been on her way home.

She took one look at the state of the room and the piece of rotting cloth Sam had balanced on the tip of his pen, and told them there was nothing she could do, and they’d better get a new room. The manager, who seemed to have gotten over her earlier hysteria, got them sorted into a room three doors down, and Glass taped off the door of their old room. Then she went home.

The manager vanished back inside after a few minutes of hovering, leaving them alone.

“We’ve got to get Dad’s journal back,” Dean said eventually.

Sam ran his fingers though his hair. “But what would a ghost want with a computer and a bunch of old notes? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“There’s a lot of information in the journal—”

“Yeah, if you can read Dad’s handwriting.”

“—And all of our research is on the laptop.”

Sam looked miserable. “I should have kept the journal with us. It wasn’t safe to leave it here, and I knew it.”

“Look, you couldn’t have known,” Dean reassured him on instinct. “We’ll just have to find this thing, figure out what the hell it wants, gank it, and get our stuff back.”

Sam nodded, inhaled raggedly, and got to his feet. “Let’s get started then.”

* * *

Something was wrong with Sam. Dean knew it the minute he started the car and Metallica blared through the speakers, and instead of snapping at him or lunging for the volume control with his outrageously long arms, Sam had just winced and turned towards the window.

Dean turned off the radio. “You okay, Sammy?”

“Yeah.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, and Sam took the hint, sighing and adding, “It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine.”

Great, because Sam’s headaches were turning out so well lately. “Is this the vision-y or the normal kind?”

Sam had to think about it for a moment, which did nothing to help Dean’s sense of unease. “Normal,” he said eventually, “I think.”

The Impala turned out onto Highway 101, the glare of the headlights painting the trees in sharp contrasts. Dean spared Sam one more worried glance. His brother was leaning against the window, eyes closed and forehead pressed against the glass. He looked in pain, and terribly young, and not for the first time, Dean wished he still had the awesome big-brother powers that used to make everything better.

Sam looked a little better by the time they reached the old highway. There was another car parked there already, its windows steamed up and faint shadows of its occupants silhouetted against the black backdrop of the forest. Dean parked at the opposite end of the asphalt from them.

He’d popped the trunk and was loading a sawn-off with salt rounds by the time Sam shambled over, a bottle of water in one hand. Dean tossed him the shotgun and he caught it easily. His headache didn’t seem to be affecting his coordination at least, which made Dean feel a little better.

Dean grabbed his own shotgun and two flashlights, and locked the trunk. There wasn’t any sign of a trail into the woods, but there were breaks in the undergrowth. The air felt different under the cover of the trees, spicy and rich, with a hint of something decomposing. It wasn’t the rancid stench of the Bandage Man, but a deep, loamy smell that almost reminded Dean of mushrooms. His boots crunched through the fir duff, and behind him he could hear Sam, his footfalls surprisingly quiet for his size.

There was a soft rustle in the branches above them, and Dean tensed, aiming shotgun and flashlight into the canopy. The glare reflected off a pair of pale round eyes and a curved beak, and Sam gave a soft huff of laughter.

They kept walking. Sam pulled the EMF meter out of his pocket, holding it with one hand and keeping his shotgun firmly in the other. He’d had to tuck his flashlight under his arm. They hadn’t heard much from the EMF so far, just a few sporadic cheeps. There was something, or had been something, in these woods, but it wasn’t close now.

“Hey,” Sam said, breaking the silence, “what’s that?” He shone his flashlight ahead of them, to where the ground rose sharply up into one of the mountains of the Coastal Hills. There was _something_ there, a dark blob against the hillside Dean thought was a boulder at first glance. Then, as they moved closer, he realized it was the mouth of a cave, nestled between two large rocks.

As they got nearer, the EMF let out a shrill whine, its lights flashing and its needle swinging wildly. The angle of the cave was awkward, and it didn’t look entirely natural. He was really hoping _burrow_ wouldn’t be a more appropriate word than _cave_. Dean had to half-climb onto one of the rocks piled by the entrance to get a look inside. Sam took the other side, and the combined glow of their flashlights was enough to illuminate the cave’s contents.

Dean’s first impression was of a flash of white against dark brown leaves. Then, as Sam gingerly poked at the leaves with his shotgun, he realized that the white was bones, clean, bleached bones, and lots of them, lying nestled in the duff. It only took a quick glance to see they weren’t human, and Dean guessed they’d found the missing dogs.

Sam turned away from the cave, shining his light out into the forest. “Did you hear that?”

Dean hadn’t heard anything, but he turned his flashlight towards the forest too, the beam illuminating his brother’s face for a second. Sam was frowning at the trees, his body a hard, tense line.

“There was a scream—”

Dean’s confusion morphed into worry. “Dude, I didn’t hear anything.”

He could tell Sam was starting to get at little freaked, and that wasn’t making Dean feel any better.

Sam took a hesitant step away from the cave, and Dean followed, shifting his grasp on his shotgun.

The smell hit him first, a stench that rolled in like a wave and surrounded them. Dean gagged, trying to breath through his mouth, but the only difference it made was that it coated the back of his throat instead of the inside of his nose. It was same smell from the abandoned truck and their motel room after it’d been trashed, but far, far, worse. It wasn’t just a dead smell, because horrible as that would have been, Dean could handled dead. There was a tang of something chemical too, an undercurrent of formaldehyde and something sickly-sweet.

Then, as Dean was still reeling, the cold hit. He raised his shotgun, but it was too late. He felt, rather than saw, something rushing at him. He got off a shot, but what ever it was tore through him undeterred, throwing him backwards against the rocks. For a second, there was just pain as every inch of him that had taken the impact screamed in protest. His head had hit one of the larger boulders hard, and he could feel blood trickling down the back of his neck. He lay there for a second, trying to get his breath back.

Then Sam yelled, his voice coming from somewhere to Dean’s right. Dean was back on his feet faster than he would have thought possible a second before, scrabbling for his gun and flashlight.

“Sam?” He found the flashlight and sent its beam swinging in a desperate arc around him.

There wasn’t an answer. The forest was quiet except for the sound of Dean’s ragged breathing. “SAM!”

* * *

 **_Saturday, April 14, 2007_**

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The sun was up by the time Dean stumbled back into the motel room exhausted and bloody. He’d searched for Sam all night, but hadn’t found anything. Sam had vanished, and he hadn’t even left proof that Dean hadn’t been alone in the forest.

So, the ghost had him.

He remembered Sam’s unease about the Bandage Man taking the laptop and Dad’s journal, and that it now had Sam too wasn’t making the picture any rosier.

Dean tried not to wonder if the previous victims had ended up like the bones in the cave. He’d find Sam before that.

His body was crying out for sleep, but he didn’t have time for that. He started a pot of coffee and took a shower, gingerly washing around the gash on the back of his skull. Then, once he had a cup of coffee, he called Chief Glass.

“The Bandage Man really took your partner?” she said when he opened the door. There was a second as she took in Dean’s appearance. “What the hell happened to you?”

He tried to give a carefree laugh, but his ribs hurt, and it ended up becoming a cough instead. That hurt worse. “Oh, you know,” he said, “the usual.”

She frowned at him, but didn’t comment. “Why did you want to meet here? What’s wrong with my office?”

 _There’s too many cops there_ , was Deans immediate reaction, but even with a head injury he wasn’t dumb enough to _say_ it. He settled for giving her his best _really?_ look, which she obviously interpreted correctly, because she nodded and pushed her lips up and together the same way Sam does when he’s caught in the act of temporarily being an idiot. She’s not dumb either.

They started out working at the tiny, wobbling, table in he kitchenette, then moved to the floor for more space. She’d brought her files and laptop, and Dean had Sam’s printouts. They spread the papers out on the floor around them, trying to find something, anything, that might have been the origin of the story, or a hint why it had taken Sam.

Dean stared at the profile of the latest victim, not really taking in the words . He hated this part, stuck here researching, when he should be out rescuing Sam, but he didn’t even have a place to start his search. He pushed down the gnawing worry, and re-read the first sentence for the third time.

“I’m sure your partner’s fine,” Glass said, not looking up from the file spread across her knees. Dean glanced up at her. The glasses she’d grudgingly pulled out of her purse after the second hour had passed were slipping off the end of her nose, and she pushed them back up with an impatient finger.

“Yeah, because we’ve found this bastard’s victims so easily.” The snark was a reflex, and Dean knew he should have kept his mouth shut as soon as it was out. Glass’ lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t answer.

They read in silence for a few more awkward minutes.

“Sorry,” Dean said finally.” I kinda look after him though, you know? He’s like my little brother or something.”

Her expression softened a little. “He’s also better trained than the other victims,” she reminded him, and Dean had to admit that she was right there. Sam might be some kind of freaky trouble magnet, but he wasn’t incapable. He was smart, he could fight, and he wouldn’t panic. He’d be fine, and even if he couldn’t escape, Sam could keep himself in one piece long enough for Dean to find him.

“Hey, I think I’ve got a connection,” Glass said, her voice startling Dean out of his thoughts. “Who are you looking at, Nate Givens?”

Dean glanced down at the pages. “Yeah.”

“What’s his job?”

“Um,” Dean scanned down the page. “He’s a writer, non-fiction, I guess.”

Glass pulled her laptop down from where she’d left it on the bed. “Look,” she said, after a few seconds of inpatient typing. She turned the laptop around so he could see the screen and the list of Nate Givens’ books she’d found.

“Listening Beyond the Veil, The Ancestors Among Us, Knowing the Unknowable,” Dean read out loud. He glanced up at Glass. “The guy’s a psychic?”

She nodded. “Or he thinks he is. Then there’s Susan Morgan, a small business owner from Tigard.” She reached around him to bring up another window. An imposing-looking older woman Dean recognized from her printout smiled back at him from the garish swirling purples of her homepage, while the giant black Persian cat on her lap glared at the camera.

“Palm and Tarot card reader,” Glass supplied. “Thought it was a little odd, but it didn’t seem important at the time. Anyway, I know two out of five isn’t that great a connection—”

“Three out of five,” Dean corrected slowly. Everything was starting to make sense. Except for the things he was still clueless about, like, _what the hell would this thing want psychics for anyway?_

“What?”

“Sam gets—” He hesitated, trying to gage if this was going to make Glass decide he was completely nuts. “Premonitions.”

“Premonitions,” she repeated flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Right.” She dragged her hand over her face. “You know, that doesn’t even sound crazy to me right now.”

“This life will do that to you.”

She almost smiled, just for a second, but then Dean’s phone rang and the moment was gone.

“Hello?” Dean said, his voice almost cracking on the second syllable, because for an instant, he was sure it was going to be Sam, that he’d escaped and found a way to contact Dean.

“Agent Townsend?”

Dean let out a breath and pulled his attention back to the phone and away from Sam. “Yeah, that’s me. Who is this?”

“Sean, from the bookstore?”

“Sean, right.” Glass looked up sharply, and he shrugged in the universal body language for _what can you do?_ “What’s wrong?” Because he’d learned a long time ago that the only person who called when things were going well was Bobby.

“I’ve been trying to figure if I should call you for an hour. I tried your partner, but I just got voicemail. It’s Lucy, the girl who works here? She didn’t come in today.”

Right, Lucy, the Sam-groupie. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure she didn’t just party late last night and is sleeping it off? It’s Saturday morning, stranger things have happened.”

“She’s not like that,” Sean snapped. “I already called the police, and they told me the same thing. This is serious though, I know it. I think the Bandage Man got her.”

“Look, we’re doing everything we can. Trust me, no one wants to find him more than me.” Dean’s first instinct was to fob him off onto Sam at this point, and it was completely typical that Sam would go and get himself captured right before the witnesses got hysterical.

“Can’t you just go to her house or something?” Sean pressed. “I’d do it, but it’s a Saturday morning, like you so astutely noted, I’m alone with the hordes, and I can’t even take the time to go on a lunch break right now.”

“Does she have a phone?” Dean asked.

“I’ve been calling her all morning. No answer.”

Dean sighed again, closing his eyes. His head was starting to pound again. “Okay, what’s the address?”

Dean had worried it would be an effort to get Sean off the phone, but a particularly large family sailed into the store as he finished giving Dean the address, and he had to go. Dean didn’t really envy him; the family had been loud enough through the phone.

“What’s his thing now?” Glass asked as Dean closed the phone.

“His assistant didn’t come in today. He thinks the Bandage Man kidnapped her.”

“Huh.” She frowned, considering it. “It would be the first time he’s taken a local.” She nodded towards the scrap paper Dean had scribbled the address onto. “That her house?”

Dean handed her the paper. “Do you know where this is?”

“More or less. It’s a little bit out of town, but not too far. Should we check it out now?”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “We?”

“You said it yourself, you don’t know where this is. Also, I’ve got the feeling I should keep an eye on you.” She smiled and it was just a little bit predatory. “And don’t tell me you wouldn’t feel more comfortable with an extra gun along.”

It took a little convincing, but Glass eventually agreed to take the Impala. As they pulled out of town, it struck Dean just how changeable the weather was on the coast. Thursday and Friday had been nice, the clouds had started to come in during the night, and now it was raining slightly, a steady, miserable drizzle that turned the town grey. It didn’t seem to stop the tourists though.

Glass told him to turn out of town the same way he’d headed towards the old section of 101 he and Sam had visited the day before. Lucy lived close by, off the highway and back in the woods. She had a long driveway that was every bit the narrow potholed gravel he’d always hated to take the Impala down, and with every bump he wished they’d gone with Glass’ squad car instead, comforting arsenal in the trunk or no.

When the house finally came into view, Dean wasn’t impressed. It was an old single-wide trailer, with mossy, corrugated siding, and a haphazard, slant-roofed addition built onto the back. They’d gone through deep forest to get here, but the trailer was in a few acres of clearing, which, as far as Dean could tell, just meant that there wasn’t anything to stop the rain.

They parked in front of the trailer. There wasn’t another car, and Dean wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. His boots squished in the mud as he got out, and from the other side of the car he heard Glass swear quietly.

The rain was coming down like it meant it now, running down the back of Dean’s neck and stinging against his skin. His hair was dripping by the time they reached the porch. Glass wasn’t doing any better, but she didn’t seem to care.

She rapped hard against the door. “Miss MacMillian? Police.”

There was no answer. She knocked again, and after they’d waited what felt like an acceptable amount of time and the house was still quiet, Dean tried the doorknob. It was unlocked, the knob sticking slightly as he turned it and let it swing open. He met Glass’ eyes, and when she shrugged, he took a step inside, Glass close behind him.

The trailer smelled odd inside, like mold and smoke, with hint of something else that Dean couldn’t identify. It was clean, if a little shabby, it and looked perfectly ordinary. Dean shivered. It was cold and damp inside, and felt like it hadn’t been lived in for a while. He wondered how long it’d been since Lucy was home.

“Miss MacMillian?” Glass called again from behind him, and Dean jumped, but she didn’t seem to notice. She brushed past him towards the half-open bedroom door, leaving him to search the kitchen and living room. Dean waited until she was gone, then eased his gun out of his waistband. Everything was completely normal and benign, but there was an edge of something _wrong_ here that he couldn’t ignore. He felt better with the gun’s solid weight in his hands.

The main rooms were clear. A cheap bead curtain separated the addition from the trailer, and as Dean pushed through it, almost tripping on the step down, the strands rattled and danced. He swore.

“Are you alright?” Glass called from the bathroom.

“Yeah.” He glanced around the room. Here, like in the rest of the house, everything seemed normal and unsuspicious. There were houseplants in the windowsills with chipped patterned plates beneath them, and yellowing old editions of “National Geographic” stacked in the corner. Through the windows was a good view of several old barns that hadn’t been visible from the road. An old, squishy-looking armchair, a short end table next to it, with books stacked on top—

Dean almost missed it on first glance, his eyes skimming over the books once he recognized the spines as Nora Roberts and Laura K. Hamilton novels. Then, he wondered how he couldn’t have spotted it.

John Winchester’s journal was open on the top of the pile, its pages open to an entry from the mid-nineties. He’d been talking about Sam, Dean realized, scanning the entry, and that it’d been left open there wasn’t made Dean’s skin crawl. He shoved his gun back into his jeans, slid the journal into his jacket, and went back to find Glass.

“There you are,” she said as he stepped back through the beads. “Look what I found.” She was sitting on the living room floor, looking through Lucy’s books with through determination. She pulled a book out of the case, and held it up for Dean to see. For a second, Dean couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be seeing, still reeling from finding Dad’s journal here. The book was a hardback, with a swirly blue and white cover that looked like it belonged in the opening credits of _Doctor Who_ , a hokey title that was just a little too familiar…

“That’s Nate Givens’ book?”

“Exactly. She doesn’t have any other books like it—the rest are all fiction.”

“You didn’t find a laptop, did you?”

She turned away from the bookshelf. “I did. Why?”

“The other night, two things were missing from the motel room after the Bandage Man visited: Sam’s laptop, and my journal, which I just found.” He pulled the journal out of his jacket and waved it as proof.

Glass slipped the book back onto the shelf. “So she’s involved then.”

Dean nodded. “There’s sheds or something out back. We should check those.”

She stood, wincing slightly as she got to her feet. “Let’s go then.”

They went back out through the front door. The rain hadn’t stopped while they were inside, and if anything, it was coming down harder. Glass paused under the dripping eaves, and pulled out her cell phone.

Dean frowned. “What are you doing?”

She poked at the buttons. “I’d feel a lot better if we had backup on the way.” She held the phone up and away for her and frowned at it. “Damn it. There’s no signal.” She sighed. “It happens, up in the hills. It’s better than it used to be, but there’s still not enough cell towers out here.”

There were three barns, two a few hundred feet from the house, and the third one another couple hundred feet further back. The pasture was even nastier than the driveway, and after a few yards, it had Dean convinced that it was more marsh than field. They split up when they reached the barns, each taking one.

The door was warped and swollen shut, but Dean kicked it open without much trouble. It was blessedly dry inside, even with the leaks, but the rain echoing against the metal roof did nothing for Dean’s headache. He searched quickly, finding a rusty tractor under a tarp, six cans of dried-up house paint, lots of spiders, a collection of old sickles and hoes that would probably be worth something on eBay if they were cleaned up, and absolutely nothing that suggested the house’s owner was allied with an evil ghost-mummy.

Dean yanked the door closed, and half-ran through the muck to the barn Glass had taken. He found her inside, feeding a mangy-looking flock of about a dozen chickens.

She looked up when he came in. “They were starving,” she said, a little defensively. “I don’t think they’d been fed for days.”

Dean didn’t have much experience with chickens, but it didn’t look like they were exactly dead on their little scaly feet. If Glass had a soft spot for chickens though, he wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

“If there’s anything here, it’ll be in the last barn,” he said instead.

They were quiet on the walk to out to the barn. It had been built close to the tree line, and the land had risen steadily since they’d left the highway. Now they were high enough up that when Dean looked back he could see a sparkling blue line of ocean beyond the trees. It was wild and beautiful, but all he could think of was that there was an awfully big padlock on the door, and he should have grabbed a shotgun out of the trunk before they hiked all this way.

This door was still strong, and Dean had to resort to picking the lock while Glass pointedly looked the other way. Dean guessed this barn was the oldest; its shape was different, long and low instead of the square pole-barn build of the first two, but while its wood was worn and weathered, it had also been kept in better condition.

Inside, it was dark and musty, with a sharp undertone of copper that made Dean’s skin crawl. The door swung shut behind Glass, shutting off what little light had made its way in through the door.

As Dean’s eyes were adjusting to the dim light, something rustled to his right. He swung towards the noise, but misjudged its distance, and it was on him before he’d managed to pull out his gun.

Dean went down hard, his breath rushing out as his already damaged ribs voiced their disapproval. He still couldn’t see a damn thing, but it wasn’t like he’d never had to fight in the dark. He blocked the punch to his face on instinct, and kicked out. His foot made contact with what he thought might have been a shin, and his attacker gave an involuntary gasp of pain. It sounded familiar.

“Sam?”

The dark figure froze just as Glass hit the light switch. The fluorescents flared to life with a rattling hiss, illuminating the too-big form of his little brother leaning over him.

“Dean!” Sam grinned, and helped pull Dean back to his feet. Sam was pale and there was an ugly bruise forming across his cheek, but he was alive, and as far as Dean was concerned, that was a win. “Sorry, we’ve been kinda on edge.” He grimaced and rubbed his leg. “You kick like a mule.”

Dean gave him his best cheeky grin in response, but sobered as Sam’s first sentence sank in. “We?”

Sam gestured back towards the depths of the barn. A dark-haired man lay slumped against the far wall, and for a second, Dean couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“He’s been unconscious for about half an hour now,” Sam said, following Dean’s gaze.

Glass brushed past Dean, and knelt down to take the man’s pulse. His head turned slightly, and Dean recognized him as the missing author.

“He’s still alive at least,” Glass said. “I’m going to try the cell again. We’ll need to search for the other victims.” On her way out the door, she stopped and looked Sam over. “Glad you’re alright. Your partner’s been worried sick.”

“So,” Dean asked once she was out of hearing. “What are we dealing with?”

Sam sighed and leaned back against the side of the doorframe, rain flecking his face and clinging in his hair. “She’s some kind of wraith. She’s got some kind of telepathy—my headache last night, and when I thought I heard a scream? That was all her. She’s been—feeding—off us. The bodies of the other missing people are in a stall in the back. They’re just…shells.”

“Glad I found you soon then.” Dean reached up to pat Sam’s shoulder. “Let’s get Nate out of here.”

Sam was weak, and Dean was still aching from the night before, and it took them far more effort than it should have for them to pull the unconscious man to his feet and steer him out of the barn.

“And the Bandage Man?” Dean asked, as they turned sideways to make it though the door.

“I saw it, and it’s definitely real, but I don’t think it’s a ghost, at least not one with free will. Lucy treated it like some kind of pet.”

“Huh.” Real ghost or not, Dean was more worried about wraith-Lucy. Life-draining wraiths, especially ones that fed regularly, could be nasty, and their bite was definitely worse than their bark.

Glass met them outside. “No luck with the phone still,” she said, frowning. “Do you need a hand?”

“I think we’ve got him,” Dean said, trying not to think of how long the walk was back to the Impala. At least it was downhill.

The rain slackened to a drizzle as they neared the house, which Dean was thankful for, but the fog rolling in from the ocean was almost as bad, leaving the Impala as little more than a dark smear in the swirling white.

It took both of the Winchesters maneuvering him and Glass holding the car door open and watching out for spare feet to get Nate in the backseat. When he was finally in, Glass slammed the door.

“I’m going to try the house phone.” She strode towards the house.

For a moment, Dean waited like an idiot by the car, running over his internal inventory of things that could lead the police back to them once this hunt was finished. Guns, check. Journal, check. Computer…damn.

“Here.” He pulled the journal out of his jacket and pressed it into Sam’s hands, then opened the passenger’s door. “Take that, wait here, and I’ll be right back.” He jogged back to the house.

Now that he knew its owner was a monster, the house had gone from a little sad and lonely to downright creepy. Little things, like the houseplants in the back room that had been a bright living spot in the house now looked sinister and probably poisonous, and the dark stains on the pokers by the living room fireplace were more like dried blood than rust.

Glass had managed to reach the police station on the landline. He caught her eye as he entered the house and mouthed _computer?_. She jerked her head in the direction of the bedroom.

He found the laptop in the bookcase by the bed, and was on his way back to the living room when he heard the gunshot.

Dean sprinted towards the door, but it flew open before he could reach it. Sam stood in the doorway, and for a second Dean still thought everything was fine. Then he saw the gnarled, grey talons digging into Sam’s arms, and realized that Sam was merely there as a shield for the smaller creature behind him.

Lucy took a half-step out from behind Sam, just enough so that she was visible, but not enough that he’d have a clear shot. She didn’t look like Lucy now. There was still enough of a resemblance that Dean could recognize her, but her features were warped into something demonic and unnatural. Her skin was grey and decaying, and her eyes were small points of dull red light in the shadows of their sockets. She still wore the jeans and cheerful t-shirt she’d worn the day before in the bookstore, and the contrast only made it worse.

“Didn’t you think that was a little too easy?” she asked, tightening her grip on Sam’s arms. He winced, and Dean felt the familiar low flare of murderous anger at someone hurting his baby brother.

“Well, you didn’t exactly hide very well,” Dean told her lightly, his right hand drifting very, very slowly towards his gun. Bullets probably wouldn’t do much, assuming the shot had been Sam trying to slow her down, but it would make him feel better if he could shoot her, maybe make her let go of Sam.

“I didn’t need to hide.” She didn’t sound like she had when she looked fully human either; there was a soft rattling hiss underneath her words that sounded almost insect-like. “This is my town. I’ve lived here since before the settlers came, taking what I needed, and no one troubled me.”

“Come on, if you’ve been eating people at this rate for all that time—” Dean frowned. The disappearances had gone back for decades, but there had only been enough to attract attention in the last few months, starting with that palm-reader from Tigard.

Dean’s fingers closed around the grip, but Lucy had finally noticed. “Stop that,” she said, letting go with one hand for long enough to make a complicated gesture. Dean felt the presence behind him just as the smell hit.

He got three shots into the Bandage Man’s chest before it reached out with one cloth-wrapped arm and knocked the gun out of Dean’s hand. The bullets didn’t even slow it down. He got a good look then—it actually did look like a mummy, its filthy bandages unraveling, its eyes dark, reflection-less pits.

The smell was worse than it’d been the night before in the forest, the close quarters of the trailer giving them no escape. Glass was on all fours, coughing, and Dean felt like he wasn’t far behind her.

“Call him off,” he gasped. There was no way he could think in this, much less fight.

“Aww, you don’t like my baby? He’s such a good little friend, even if he does call attention to himself. He likes dogs, you see. Can’t resist them.”

Dean’s eyes were streaming from the smell, but he could still see Lucy smiling. Sam had fallen to his knees, and only her grip was keeping him from falling to the floor. He didn’t look conscious.

She looked between Dean and Glass, and the smile faded. “Still, you’re no good to me like this.” The Bandage Man didn’t leave, but the smell faded until it was at the “open grave” level Dean could deal with.

“Why psychics?” he asked once he got his breath back.

She frowned, caught off guard, then glanced down at Sam, pink-grey tongue skimming unconsciously over her lips. “So much in his head,” she murmured, voice so low Dean had to strain to hear her. “So wonderful.” She dipped her head, nuzzling the hair by Sam’s temple.

Dean’s stomach churned and for a second, all he could feel was revulsion. Then everything clicked into place. “You’re a junkie, aren’t you? You got one taste of psychic life-force, and now you can’t stop. That’s why you’ve been taking more people.”

Her head snapped up. “The writer wasn’t enough. He had a little, I guessed that from his books, but it was weak, diluted. Your brother is pure and strong. I sensed that from the moment I saw him.” Lucy let go of Sam, and he slumped to the floor. She crossed the room towards Dean, and he tensed, ready for the fight, but she picked up his fallen gun instead, leveling it at his head.

“You don’t realize how much you’ve helped me,” she said, talons wrapping around the trigger. She smiled. “The things on your computer—I haven’t left this town for a century, but if there’s more like little Sammy out there…” She cocked the gun, adjusted her aim. Dean winced as he waited for the inevitable, but it never came.

Lucy stared down, dumfounded, at the poker sticking through her heart. Sam stood behind her, panting. She fell forward, just missing Dean, as her skin crumbled to dust, and her face lost any humanity it once had. There was a swirl of foul air, and the Bandage Man vanished.

Dean looked up at Sam.

“Iron,” Sam supplied. He was supporting himself against the wall with one hand, and looked like he was going to throw up at any second. “Figured it was worth a try.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Never hurts to give the classics a shot.” He let his knees fold under him and leaned back against the wall as Sam did the same. Glass had worked her way up to sitting, and he smiled at her. “See? No problem.”

In the distance, sirens wailed.

* * *

It took the rest of the day to clean things up.

In a chest under the bed, Dean found a mangled skeleton that looked like it might just have been in some sort of horrible lumber mill accident, and when he and Sam dragged what was left of the wraith’s body behind the house to salt and burn, he threw the bones on the fire as well.

The paramedics had claimed Nate Givens and taken him to the hospital up in Seaside. From what Chief Glass had said, he was expected to make a full recovery, though the doctor were mystified by what was actually wrong with him.

They’d wanted to take Sam to the hospital too, but Sam had managed to pull himself together long enough to convince them he was fine. Then he’d collapsed and bitched for Dean to bring him coffee and pastries. Dean let him sleep in the backseat for a few hours, then made him help with the damage control. He was looking better already, a little pale maybe, but strong enough to help carry the gasoline. By the time they stumbled back to the motel room at a quarter to midnight, he was back to his usual self.

Dean didn’t let him see how relieved he was. Over the last few months, he’d felt like every injury Sammy suffered could be his last. It was nothing new—the life of a hunter was nothing if not filled with imminent death, but between Dad dying and the looming danger of the Yellow Eyed Demon’s plans for Sam, everything somehow felt more real, more threatening. From what Sam had said, he hadn’t been in any pressing danger. The wraith would have kept him alive for days, maybe weeks, depending on its self-control. Somehow though, that wasn’t comforting.

Dean glanced at Sam, sleeping like the dead on the other bed, and let his own eyes drift shut.

* * *

 **  
_Sunday, April 15, 2007_   
**

**  
_  
_   
**

They were driving south on Highway 101, the Pacific sparkling and blue on Dean’s right. It had been a quiet drive since they’d left Cannon Beach. Sam was watching the waves out the window, and when Dean had cranked up the radio he hadn’t complained. It was a more companionable silence then the one on the way into town had been though, and Dean was happy about that. It didn’t mean he had to enjoy it though.

He turned the radio down, and Sam turned to look at him.

“Have you ever been to a cheese factory?” Dean asked him, and Sam frowned.

“What?”

“Cheese factory. I saw a billboard. Could be fun.”

Sam’s frown deepened. “Is it haunted?”

Dean hadn’t considered that. “Don’t think so.”

Sam bit his lip. “We’re going back up through Portland before we head east, aren’t we?”

That had been the plan.

“Okay, we can go to your cheese factory if we can go to my bookstore.”

Dean turned to glare at him. “You like cheese too.”

“And I also like books. If we’re going through Portland anyway…”

“Fine. You can go to your lame bookstore.” Dean sneaked a glance at Sam. He looked properly happy for the first time in days, and that was worth it, all of it.

“Thanks,” Sam said after a moment. “For, you know, coming to rescue me, like you always do.”

Dean’s smile was easy and natural, even as something twisted painfully inside him. “Hey, it’s my job. I’ll always be there to save your sorry ass.”

“Yeah.” Sam turned to look out the window again. “I know.”

They drove on in silence.


End file.
